Attention
by Lemacon
Summary: Haruno Yukinoshita is used to getting her way.


Haruno Yukinoshita gets what she wants.

She doesn't want, or ask for much of anything. But the fact remains that on the rare occasions that she does:

Haruno Yukinoshita gets what she wants.

Not many tried or ever thought to defy her if they knew what was good for them. She was a storm of social status and perfection after all.

Looks and brains.

Infinity times two.

Not being on her good side was almost akin to a social faux pas. Being on neither was suicide. At first the notion amused her greatly, but as the pile of social obligations grew, so did her boredom.

Becoming popular was supposed to be a delicate process of calculated interactions and patient social climbing. Haruno skipped both steps and, through her aggressively charismatic nature found herself atop the social pyramid. All too soon she found herself friends with everyone and no one at the same time. Popularity was empty. Popularity was boring.

It was boring being liked, and Haruno Yukinoshita did not do boring. She wanted a challenge, and like most other things she wanted, she got one.

Her sister's emotional crutch didn't seem to be all that remarkable at first. First impressions yielded less than impressive conclusions. She initially labeled him as a nobody with only an exceptionally rotten personality to offset his sheer blandness. She knew many like him, cynical and grousing - always with petty words to say, but they were all the same. Attention would reveal the pathetic shell of a man underneath.

So with that in mind, she played with him. A poke in the cheek here, a lurid comment there, and a generous serving of some almost vicious teasing peppered her meetings with him. It took no time to realize that he despised the attention. The pokes got grimaces, the comments got narrowed eyes, and teasing got some equally acerbic replies. Not to mention, the charismatic aura she'd veiled herself in seemed to actively repel him. His knee-jerk response to her character was abject terror and if she herself wasn't so aware of it, she might've thought him rude. That response alone was already reason enough for her to speak to him more, but he managed to intrigue her even further.

Soba High had been on the fast track to chaos on that day. The cultural festival had been in flux and she'd been in the middle of it all setting up the fall for the committee head. She was the devil whispering sweet words to ears that were all too keen to listen. As a result, deadlines were pushed back, members were confused, and progress was nowhere in sight. Just as the coup de grace was about to be delivered, and before her dear sister could even think to put herself in the line of fire, he put on a show that left her in tears. Such venom. Such subtlety. Such disgusting manipulation of social dynamic.

Beyond those rotten eyes seemed to lie an almost bursting wealth of insights from a twisted mind she desperately wanted to pick. His eyes were like x-rays designed to shed masks of superficiality. He didn't understand people as well as he thought he did, but to his credit, he did a better job than most. He was a social pessimist, which in many ways, she was too. But whereas she greeted superficiality with a healthy dose of her own, he seemed almost allergic to it. There was an air of paranoia about him with regards to people. Yet, he seemed to firmly believe in the existence of something which strictly involved them. She doubted it, and he remained defiant. Perhaps there was still some hope in interesting human interaction.

She started to pick at him and mess with him to break his shell with even greater vigor. Pokes and prods at his psyche turned to vicious stabs and slashes at them. She didn't fish for reactions anymore, she forced them out from him. Any outing he had - rare as they might have been - she was there to interrupt and pester him. There weren't any pretenses she kept up around him at that point. She wasn't a nice person, he knew it. Splendid. He just seemed to get ill with the extra attention. There was something refreshing about his tendency to judge, and at the same time, not. Still she had to admit, the fun she was having was quickly eclipsing the alien feeling of being ignored.

The fact remained though that he hadn't yet cracked under her influence and presence. There was a solid 10-foot pole he was wedging between himself and her. Wise, but misguided. Of course, she wasn't one to back down from the challenge he posed to her. Haruno Yukinoshita was used to and _would_ be getting her way in the end if she had any say in the matter. She _would_ have his attention simply because she wanted it. She was the cat and she would play with her rat till it died or she grew weary.

The situation was near neither outcome and Haruno was irritated and delighted at the same time. There was the paradox in her nature. She liked challenges, but she liked getting her way as well. The two warred within her leaving something dark in their wake. "Destructive curiosity", Shizuka had dubbed it and she found herself inclined to agree. At the end of everything, she found herself hard pressed seeing Hikkigaya Hachiman as the same person when she was done with him.

No one went against what she wanted.

Her eyes narrowed even as a saccharine sweet smile tugged at her lips. No one.

The Tyrant King was still a king after all.

XXX

 **AN: Just wanted to try something new here. I'm a fan of Haruno and her personality. Capturing her chatacter is difficult to say the least. Not sure if I'll continue this, though I do have a rough idea of where I want to take this.**


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